Water―specifically accessibility to freshwater resources―is widely proclaimed to be one the 21st century’s greatest global challenges.

Around the planet, the agricultural sector consumes about 70 per cent of all accessible freshwater (industry consumes 23 per cent; municipal use consumes eight per cent). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that by 2050 nearly four billion of the world’s nine billion people will live in areas seriously affected by water shortages, potentially triggering an international food crisis.

At the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, researcher Ibrahim Dincer is part of an international research team working with global industry partners to develop and test a new agricultural irrigation system that uses sunlight (photocatalysis) to disinfect nutrient-rich urban wastewater, and effectively turn it into clean water and hydrogen for farming purposes.

The innovative ecofarming system and its potential to save substantial volumes of freshwater around the world.

“The resultant ‘treated’ water can be reused to irrigate crops, while the hydrogen (gas) captured by the system can be reused as an on-site energy source to power greenhouses with hydroponic crops and irrigation systems for land crops.”